Knicks Morning News (Saturday, Sep 28 2013)

Steve Mills was closing in on possibly succeeding Billy Hunter as head of the NBA players’ union and was also being mentioned as a candidate to become athletic director at his alma mater, Princeton, when suddenly James Dolan re-entered his life.

Zwerling seems pretty well connected and most of the noise coming out is that this is a setup for Houston to eventually take over the reins as GM. If Warkentien and Gabriel also still have a say at the table I feel like we will be okay in terms of personnel decisions overall unless Mills gets antsy and wants to make some kind of absurd move to acquire veterans (read as: bloated contracts for aging players). It’s pretty easy to be doom and gloom about the Knicks in general, but the fact that the ship didn’t sink when Donnie left and we replaced him with Grunwald, who didn’t have a very impressive resume before his New York stint, gives me some hope.

It’s nice to hear someone say that this isn’t so bad; and it’s true that it’s still the same set of coach and players and that things won’t necessarily get worse. But I don’t believe the stuff about grooming Houston. It would have been easy to groom him and still leave Grunwald where he is. It’s much more likely that Grunwald made some sort of miss-step with Dolan and was punished. I’ve seen this happen in a corporate setting. No one will talk if that was the case, and people will be told some story like the one we just hear about Houston.

If my theory is correct, Mills will be better at managing up than Grunwald was (that is making himself seem a good employee to his management), but prior history suggests that he will be worse at the nuts and bolts of acquiring talent. He is also likely to be worse because his first focus will be on figuring out and doing what Dolan wants, and his second focus will be everything else. For a historical example of something like this I would cite the case of GM China. The CEO of GM china with the best track record of results and who managed it to record growth and sales was fired by GM right after that. He wasn’t fired for his results, he was fired because corporate GM wanted someone more like themselves and probably wanted someone easier to manage.

1. Mills and O’Nell had a mini-war for control. O’Neill won, Mills lost some power. He then lost all his remaining power when Walsh joined the team, so he left.
2. O’Neill got sick of Dolan so he left.
3. Donnie Walsh got sick of Dolan so HE left.
4. Mills didn’t get Billy Hunter’s job, so he was now available

Those four things i think are definitely true.

So then you got one of two things…

5a. Dolan wanted Mills back, so he agreed to bring him back even if it meant dumping Grunwald
5b. Grunwald and Dolan had a conflict and Dolan quickly jumped on the now-available Mills, since Dolan likes Mills a lot (just not as much as he liked O’Neill or Walsh back in the day).

Grooming Houston certainly is a part, but as noted, Grunwald obviously could have groomed Houston himself. This has more to do with Dolan liking Mills and either liking him so much he wanted him over Grunwald or liking him and now disliking Grunwald.

The only thing I hope we don’t see is suddenly stuff from folks who loved Grunwald for the last few years suddenly turning on him now that he’s gone. “We have to trust Grunwald, We have to trust Grunwald. Grunwald’s gone? Well, he was never that good in the first place.”

The ship didn’t sink when Donnie left because Grunwald, the lone voice of reason during the Isiah days, was there to fill the void. Now the void is being filled with one of the voices of insanity during the Isiah days. This may not turn into a Layden/Isiah level disaster, but there’s no way this is a step in the right direction.

Dolan wants Dolan loyalists, not basketball minds. David Stern forced him to hire Donnie Walsh. if it had been up to Dolan, Isiah would still be smirking in the msg tunnel.

Who could be more loyal than Allan Houston, a guy he’s given $115 million to already; a guy he paid double the market value for no apparent reason; a guy who he didn’t amnesty even after the amnesty clause was named the “Allan Houston” provision. What else it could possibly take to “groom” him, i have no idea. But Dolan seems to think he needs to learn from the best Dolan kiss-ass on the market (Isiah is still barred by the commish).

I’d answer this question if I knew what you were asking, but I dont I’m afraid. Sorry.

Just wondering, are the bucks grooming Michael Redd for their gm position? Like Houston, he can shoot basketballs, is a devout believer in christ, was loyal to his franchise, and he took the better part of $100 million watching basketball in street clothes. Sounds like GM material to me!

If my theory is correct, Mills will be better at managing up than Grunwald was (that is making himself seem a good employee to his management), but prior history suggests that he will be worse at the nuts and bolts of acquiring talent.He is also likely to be worse because his first focus will be on figuring out and doing what Dolan wants, and his second focus will be everything else.

He will be worse at the nuts & bolts of acquiring talent ? Isn’t that the main and most important job of the GM?! As a fan I don’t really care about focusing on what Dolan wants, so if true (and it’s a good theory I admit) the team is so screwed. Really scary and depressing if that’s what’s going on here.